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Torque Steer Rant

SilverRocket

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Hear me out as I do my best impersonation of an old man yelling at clouds in regards to the issue of torque steer. Sorry, not sorry to all those I offend.

Going through countless forum posts, videos, articles and their comment sections I think I've hit my limit of facepalm inducing opinions on the matter and I wanted to discuss it in a manner that is seldom brought up.

Firstly, the concept that torque steer should be nil. Yes, please do make a car so boring and predictable that it eliminates any driver finesse. Have it so refined and balanced that you could be a complete imbecile with the inputs, where the computer and geometries will still make you equivalent to an F1 driver [/sarcasm]. There is a balance to it that must be struck and if you stomped on the throttle in a straight line and ended up 2 lanes over, I would wholeheartedly agree that it's shit, but that's far from being the case.

Also why is there such a difference in acceptance of RWD "torque steer". Let me preface this one by saying I love oversteer/sliding as much as the next enthusiast and yes IMHO it is more fun than the FWD version but why is it that a rotation of the car via the throttle to the rear wheels is so desirable but to the front it is universally hated? I view both as a fun dance with your machine, just that one is the tango, the other is the salsa.

To that last analogy, and my final point on the matter, why are people even considering the ITS if they don't like the potential of torque steer? We don't live in communist countries where everyone need to drive the same car. If it's not your cup of tea, go have a coffee. You're considering buying a high HP front wheel drive car and despite the reviewers who only test it in near perfect conditions saying that there's none, there will always be some when you introduce bad roads and/or inclement weather. If that's the case please go buy one of the boring German "equivalents" .

Myself, I see the ITS like Kate Upton. It has imperfections but it is what sets it apart.....and would you not date Kate Upton because she has a mole?
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nix6speed

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The people complaining about torque steer on this platform never drove a MazdaSpeed3.
They don't know what torquesteer really is.
My '05 GLI with a tune and no other mods had sketchy feeling torque steer too with significantly less power than the ITS or an MS3.

TL;DR of OPs post?
 

norsairius

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Yeah, the ITS has some torque steer, but it's very manageable. I'm surprised at how much attention the torque steer is getting. I'd probably rate it maybe a 2 or a hesitant max of 3 on the scale of 0 being "non-existent" to 10 being "this thing will yank you across the interstate into opposing traffic" kind of scary.

The torque steer in the ITS feels less abrupt than the lane centering did in my 2021 TLX with how it would yank the wheel to get the car back in line. It would surprise me a lot because it would misread turn lanes and onramp lane markings, among other things.
 

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StingertimeNC

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I drove a Mazdaspeed 3 and loved it. It was definitley crazy at times but just part of the character of the car. No biggie.
 

hypersss

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It's a given that for some buyers, the ITS is in fact their first experience driving a 300+ hp FWD car. For anyone here who's driven a whole bunch of them, one of them must have been the first one. How would you have known how exactly the torque steer was going to feel before driving one for the first time?

Maybe you'd read and watch as many reviews as possible. It's not like you'd be able to take the car out on a test drive. Even if you did, you'd probably not drive it hard enough to really find out.





Of course this is going to impact people's expectations.
 
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SilverRocket

SilverRocket

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It's a given that for some buyers, the ITS is in fact their first experience driving a 300+ hp FWD car. For anyone here who's driven a whole bunch of them, one of them must have been the first one. How would you have known how exactly the torque steer was going to feel before driving one for the first time?

Maybe you'd read and watch as many reviews as possible. It's not like you'd be able to take the car out on a test drive. Even if you did, you'd probably not drive it hard enough to really find out.



https://www.autonationdrive.com/blog/2019/october/23/2019-honda-civic-type-r-test-drive-review.htm

Of course this is going to impact people's expectations.
I agree, you don't really know until you experience it but at the same time it's not a toy. It's a fast car that needs to be treated with respect and if someone is really blindsided by the controllable torque steer it has, they may have jumped too far too fast.

To your point about expectations, the issue is that reviewers and journalists cannot go into the infinite possibilities of the real world. They drive it for a few days and then make their content based on what will be applicable to most people, most of the time.

Remove the ITS from the equation, if they were talking about how planted a RWD car was 0-60 and then you bought the car and had the tail step out badly accelerating fast in some rain, at what point is it up to the reader/viewer to have common sense?

The Engineering Explained video is probably the best proof of just how good the system is. He clearly says "in most situations" at the start of the video and the acceleration with no hands on the wheel (at 2:16) speaks volumes. Try that with even a Civic Si or A-Spec and you'd soon realize why they are saying what they're saying. Same trick in the Mazdaspeed 3 is practically a death wish.
 

crepr12

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Kate Upton is your go to..Is she still alive...j/k...Yeah there are guys rolling around near 400 after market ponies with little to no TQ steer...sure. You gotta learn to drive within your platform limits, front vs rear or 2wd v 4wd...Or please stay in the right lane...
 

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ChromaPop

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The people complaining about torque steer on this platform never drove a MazdaSpeed3.
They don't know what torquesteer really is.
I had a first year version, great car except for that fact. One of the first cars where the stock tune of the engine sounded pretty amazing.
 

dockleryxk

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I completely agree with everything you've said. My first car was my grandma's old '93 Cadillac DeVille. It was such a stupid platform - FWD V8. The torque steer was insane but that's the car I learned to drive in.

It made me love FWD and find the fun in torque steer. That's just me though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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SilverRocket

SilverRocket

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I completely agree with everything you've said. My first car was my grandma's old '93 Cadillac DeVille. It was such a stupid platform - FWD V8. The torque steer was insane but that's the car I learned to drive in.

It made me love FWD and find the fun in torque steer. That's just me though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And I hope that's what I made clear. I'm not bad mouthing people for their opinion. It's completely valid for people to hate torque steer and I can respect that, it's just the frustrating part is seeing them impart those opinions so consistently and widely. I mean I don't out of my way to share how dumb and wasteful I think most SUVs are. I keep it to myself and I don't go seeking SUV reviews to preach my view but it seems inescapable for the ITS.

Hopefully the Acura development team disregards this type of "feedback" because I don't want to live in a world where there's not at least a few tolerable foibles left in a car to make it fun/special.
 

dockleryxk

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thosport

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The people complaining about torque steer on this platform never drove a MazdaSpeed3.
They don't know what torquesteer really is.
100%. This car is a monster - and it's part of the charm. At this point in life, I much prefer the DE5 version of FWD.
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